China

BEIJING/SYDNEY (Reuters) - China has begun an anti-dumping probe into imports of Australian wine, it said on Tuesday, a move that knocked a fifth off the market value of Australia’s biggest winemaker and is likely to worsen tension between the nations.

The investigation by China’s commerce ministry will look at imports of wine from Australia in containers of two litres or less in 2019, the ministry said in a statement, and examine any damage to the domestic wine industry from 2015 to 2019.

BEIJING, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- China on Monday slammed the recent U.S. executive order requiring ByteDance to divest its interest in TikTok's operations in the United States within 90 days, saying that the so-called "freedom" and "security" are merely excuses for the "digital gunboat policy" pursued by some U.S. politicians.

BEIJING (AP) — The staff of the Chinese consulate in Houston that was ordered shut by the U.S. government has returned to China.

Wearing face masks because of the coronavirus pandemic, they were greeted on the tarmac by Foreign Minister Wang Yi after disembarking from a chartered Air China flight in Beijing on Monday night.

“You have resolutely safeguarded the core interests, the dignity of the country and the legitimate rights of China’s overseas institutions under very difficult, even dangerous, conditions,” he said.

BEIJING, Aug 17 (APP): The Chinese strength in fighting against the COVID-19 epidemic was impressive, which shows its comprehensive strength of sci-tech and governance, Syed Sajid Jan, a Pakistani student at Fujian Normal University (FNU), China’s Fujian Province said on Monday.

“China makes a good response to the pandemic. We should learn from China,” the 26 years old doctoral candidate of the University told China Economic Net (CEN).

LONDON/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has resigned from an honorary fellowship at a college at Britain’s Cambridge University after it questioned her commitment to the protection of human rights and freedom of expression.

Lam said the accusations made by Wolfson College were “groundless” and said she was “deeply disappointed by the college smearing a person on the basis of hearsay instead of facts”.

BEIJING, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- An inactivated COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by China is safe and generates an immune response, according to data from clinical trials published in The Journal of the American Medical Association this week.

The research paper provided an interim analysis of the phase-1 and phase-2 clinical trials of an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products under the China National Biotec Group (CNBG), affiliated to Sinopharm, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

HONG KONG, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- People from all walks of life and various organizations in Hong Kong have expressed their support for a decision adopted by China's top legislature for the sixth Legislative Council (LegCo) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) to continue performing duties.

HONG KONG (AP) — Jimmy Lai had just finished his morning exercise and was catching up on the news when the police arrived.

“There were 15, 20 policemen there, and they said I was under arrest and that they were from the national security department,” the Hong Kong media tycoon recounted in a live-streamed video chat Thursday.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Wednesday that U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar has performed the “worst in the world” in controlling the novel coronavirus, rejecting criticism of China made by Azar during a three-day trip to Taiwan this week.

Azar attacked China’s response to the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday saying that if such an outbreak had emerged in Taiwan or the United States it could have been “snuffed out easily”.

BEIJING (AP) — China on Monday announced unspecified sanctions against 11 U.S. politicians and heads of organizations promoting democratic causes, including Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, who have already been singled out by Beijing.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Monday said the 11 had “performed badly” on issues concerning Hong Kong, where China has cracked down on opposition voices following its imposition of a national security law in the semi-autonomous southern Chinese city last month.